


dig your heels in, don't run away

by mageofmind (renegadeartist)



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016), Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dr Nyarlathotep, Project Blackwing (Dirk Gently)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 04:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13403334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renegadeartist/pseuds/mageofmind
Summary: “The only thing anyone knows about them is that their Subject name is Aion. Not even the scientists know anything about them. They’d been interrogating Aion for years and they never got anywhere. Finally they just… gave up. No scientist would get close to them, because there was something unsettling and wrong about them.”Aion is a Hellenistic deity associated with time, the orb or circle encompassing the universe, and the zodiac. The "time" represented by Aion is unbounded, in contrast to Chronos as empirical time divided into past, present, and future.





	dig your heels in, don't run away

**Author's Note:**

> No one else was gonna write this so I did. I've been told that knowledge of either series is not required, though it would certainly help.

“Blackbook was built up around a few subjects, you know,” says Elli, the ringleader of their little group. “Six of them, brought in before any of us. Been here for years.”

“There’s Moloch, of course,” says Athos, and then rattles off other Subject names, ones that no one in the circle can put faces to, though they would never admit it. It’s a rare thing, being able to interact with other subjects, other people who understand and think like they do. It really wouldn’t do to look a fool in front of them.

“Right,” Elli nods, and then they lean in, like there’s a dire secret about to be imparted. The other members of the circle lean in as well, even the newest of the bunch, Icarus. They don’t know each other’s names, but they know each other by what the guards and scientists yell at them constantly. “What they won’t tell you is that there’s another, a seventh. A Subject so terrible, so unspeakable, that they were locked away at the center of the facility and left to rot in solitude.”

Athos continues, “Some say that they went insane, being locked away from everyone else, only given a few meals a week.”

“The only thing anyone knows about them is that their Subject name is Aion. Not even the scientists know anything about them. They’d been interrogating Aion for years and they never got anywhere. Finally they just… gave up. No scientist would get close to them, because there was something unsettling and wrong about them.”

“I heard they think Aion is an alien,” Miru piped up, raising her hand like the good student she had always been praised as. “Or a demon. Or something else.”

“I heard there’s no such thing. It’s just a rumor,” Mot says, leaning back on his hands and blowing his long bangs out of his face. “No proof.”

“It’s true,” Lamia says airily, like she always does. “I’ve seen them.”

There’s a ripple of disbelief that spreads through the circle. Elli jumps on that as fast as they can. “See? And besides, I know you can all feel it.”

There is silence.

“The feeling of the floor being a little tilted, the feeling that there’s something following you through the halls, just an inch behind you. The involuntary shiver that runs down your spine and the hair on your arms and neck that stand on end.”

Icarus clings close to Lamia and the others shiver as Elli speaks.

“In the center of this facility is a Subject that even Mr. Priest is afraid of. And he’s not afraid of _Marzanna_.”

The idea is too terrifying to comprehend.

“That’s why we’re going to sneak deeper into the facility and find them.”

The group suddenly forgot the need to whisper and started clamoring over each other to be heard. Some were against it, some were all for it, but all, barring Lamia and Icarus, were as loud as they could be.

In the end, all seven of the members of the circle were convinced to join in, with Wraith leading the way, melting themself and the group into the shadows to avoid any guards. Lamia pointed out the correct path, and eventually they made it to a door with an ornate pattern of circles painted on it.

They all knew it was the right door, because they all knew how wrong it felt.

“Ok,” Elli says, and though it was their plan, there is shaking in their voice. They reach over to the control panel on the wall and start pushing buttons randomly, knowing their preternatural luck will make them hit the right combination.

Their group is only five, now, as two have broken off and run back where they had come. There is an unnatural and foreboding feeling that pushes back against all present. The doors slide open, and suddenly it is only Lamia and Icarus who are still there.

“Hello, Mr. Doctor,” Lamia says brightly.

“Hello, Mona,” says the being that is far more than the cell can contain and yet barely big enough to fill a three dimensional body. "How have you been?" 

* * *

 

She thinks she has a name, but they call her Marzanna, and she doesn’t know if she should accept it or not.

She remembers being called Bart, and she knows that Mr. Priest calls her that when she’s holding a knife and he doesn’t want her to kill anyone, even when it feels like she should.

She stays in her room, normally, because there’s a promise of ice cream and cartoons if she does. If she cooperates, she is rewarded. She has nowhere else to go, and no real desire to go, so she stays, and plays with the stuffed animals she has accumulated over the years.

She is not allowed to see the others, but she knows they’re there, because she hears the scientists talking about them, and because she can feel them, sort of, through the web that holds the Universe together and connects them all.

But she also feels something else, something deeper and wrong in a way that’s really just twisted rightness.

Where the other Subjects are drops of rain, the Other thing is an ocean. She feels like she should kill it just as much as she feels like she must never interfere with it and what it does. It doesn’t seem to exist in the way that she and the others do, and yet it tries to.

Naturally, with nothing else to do, she decides that she wants to see who or what this feeling belongs to.

It is simple to push her door open - the lock was too old to hold - and walk out. The guard outside yelps and points a gun at her and fires, but the tranquilizer dart inside of it bounces off the wall and sticks in the guard’s neck.

She laughs and continues walking, winding her way through the facility, following the feeling of wrong-and-right even as the alarms start to blare. She wishes they would shut off, so she takes a detour into a room full of screens and buttons and smashes a chair into them. The alarms shut off.

She continues on her way, and eventually she makes it to a door at the end of a cordoned off hallway that has a complicated design on it made up of a bunch of circles inside of each other. She slams her palm against what she’s seen scientist types use to open the doors, and it slides open with barely a sound.

She peers into the room, and ignores the feeling that is urging her to leave as fast as she can. She has seen the dark side of the universe, peeled away the lower layers and witnessed what’s underneath. She has seen chaos and monsters and caused the end of both.

What is in the room is not quite the same, but it isn’t quite different, either.

In its most basic form, what the scientists and security guards will see on tape later, is a room that was once white, covered floor to ceiling with paper jam packed with crayon drawings of all shapes, sizes, and hues. There is a table shoved to one side, a bed to the other, and the bare necessities of a bathroom in the corner.

There is what some might be content to call a man but wasn’t really laying on their side on the bed, but as soon as the doors slid open leapt up and turned to their guest.

“Hello!” they say. “I haven’t seen you before.”

To Bart, there is a room, no more than a glorified box, holding within its confines a being that was much larger and older than she could comfortably comprehend. Their body was as much inside the room as it wasn’t, they were a prisoner as much as they weren’t, and they had always been there as much as they had never truly been.

To Bart they were something the Universe flowed around and directed as best it could, while she was suffused with the Universe’s will and could barely be said to have her own.

Their being pushes against all of her senses and urges her to run. She digs her heels in and refuses.

“Hi. I’m Bart.”

“Bart! That’s a lovely name. What are you doing here, Bart?”

She has to pause for a moment, because she really didn’t have an answer to that. What comes out of her mouth is, “You were loud.”

The mass of Being that she is talking to tilts their head. “I haven’t said anything in…” They count each day on an indeterminable number of fingers. “Fifty days.”

“Why not?”

“Not really a reason to.”

“Oh.” Bart frowns. “That’s kind of sad. But I think I know how you feel.”

“Do you?” they ask with interest. Then, they seem to remember something. “Oh, but I’m being rude. Please, come in. I’d offer you tea but, well, I don’t exactly have the means of making it. I’m the Doctor, by the way.”

“Hi,” Bart says again, as she sits down on the bed that’s about as comfortable as hers is, which is to say not very comfortable at all. “You’re not like the other doctors,” she says with confidence.

The being now known as the Doctor sits next to her. “Oh, really? Why do you say that?”

“Because the others aren’t like… that,” she says, motioning as well as she can to all of them.

“That?”

“Yeah, you know. Weird.” She can’t find words to describe it that are more specific than that. The Doctor nods.

“Ah. Well, yes, I don’t imagine the human scientists in this facility are complicated space-time events. The Universe can only handle so many, you know.”

“You’re just talking nonsense,” says Bart, who knows and yet doesn’t know what the Doctor is talking about. “But you’re nice. I like you.”

They shake their head. “I don’t think nice is the right word, but thank you.”

“Do you like ice cream? Because I do. I only ever get it when I’ve been good, though. Mr. Priest lets me get my favorite flavor if I’ve been extra good.”

“I do, though I’m more partial to jelly babies myself,” they say, holding out a hand with a small, brightly colored sweet in it. Bart takes it and chews it appreciatively. “I’ve met Mr. Priest. He’s a piece of work.”

Bart shrugs. “He’s my friend.”

“Well then I don’t think much of the company you keep, Bart.”

“I don’t keep them. They keep me.”

“I suppose I walked into that one, huh?” They lean back and ask, “Have you ever looked up at the stars and asked yourself what’s out there?”

Bart shakes her head. “Not really. I never really got to see many stars. The sky was always just… black.”

The Doctor seems scandalized. “Well then we’ll just have to rectify that, won’t we.” With one smooth motion they are crouching in front of Bart, had always been, and they look into her eyes and say, “One day, you will escape from here, and you will be able to be really and truly happy. And when that happens, if you want to, I will take you to see the stars.”

Bart considers the offer. “Can we get ice cream? Or more of those… jelly baby things?”

The Doctor laughs. “I can take you to the best creamery in the known universe.”

“Then sure,” she says. They shake on it, and Bart finds that it’s not as hard as it once was to focus on the being known as the Doctor and arrange who and what they are into something resembling a person. She has the feeling that this is what normal people see.

They talk for a while longer, about everything and nothing, and Bart only understands one word in ten, but she finds that she is happy, and she doesn’t want this night to end. But she knows it has to, and eventually the Doctor says, “I need you to do me a favor.”

Bart figures it’s the least she can do after crashing into their room like this.

“Get back to your room so you can sleep. It’ll be a big day tomorrow. You need your rest.”

Bart nods. “Alright.” She stands and heads to the door that, for some reason, remained open during her visit. She turns and hesitates, before throwing her arms around the Doctor as best she can and squeezing tightly. “It was nice to talk to someone,” she says.

“Likewise,” says the Doctor. They tap her on the nose and give her another candy. “Goodbye, Bart. Until next time.”

She pops the candy in her mouth and steps outside. She heads back to her room and is only slightly confused as to why there are no guards swarming the hallways.

She falls asleep with minimal fuss and misses the clock sitting on the desk in the corner of the room cheerily saying that she had only been gone for five minutes at most.

* * *

 

“Fine, thank you. This is Icarus,” she says. 

They lean down and stick out a hand to shake. “Good to meet you, Dirk Gently.” 

They are left alone, and there is the sound of small feet on hard linoleum. The Doctor wishes, not for the first time, that they didn’t all run away.  


End file.
